New Hampshire woman files defamation suit against Bill Cosby

Kristina Ruehli, 72, says Cosby unfairly branded her a fanciful liar when she stepped forward last year and said the disgraced funnyman drugged and sexually assaulted her 50 years ago.

Monday’s lawsuit maintains that Bill Cosby has defamed Kristina Ruehli with the aforementioned statement.

“In making the false and defamatory statements, Mr. Cosby held Mr. Ruehli up to public scorn and ridicule, injured her good name and reputation and caused her severe emotional distress”, her lawyers say in the complaint, filed in federal court in Springfield, near where Cosby has a home.

A New Hampshire woman has joined the growing ranks of accusers suing Bill Cosby and alleging defamation. His spokesman Andrew Wyatt had no comment on Monday. Cosby had invited Ruehli and other members of her office to his house but when she arrived around 10 p.m.no one else was there, she alleged. Cosby told her his wife was out of town and then took her to a bedroom and showed her where an infant was sleeping.

After two drinks, Ruehli blacked out.

When Ruehli woke up, she found herself naked and in bed with Cosby, she said. “He was attempting to place his penis in her mouth and force her to give him oral sex”. She says she became ill and threw up in the bathroom and that when she was done, he was gone. She got dressed, went home and chose to leave the agency a short time later, Ruehli said.

According to Reuters, “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids” host, Cosby has a similar suit against him in federal court in MA and California also. “Rather, Ms. Ruehli stands ready to tell her story to a jury of her peers, under oath, and to allow them to pass judgment and affirm that Ms. Ruehli’s account, like so many others, is true, and the only other person in the room that night in 1965 surely knows it”.

The Associated Press generally doesn’t identify people who say they’re victims of sexual abuse, but the women have come forward to tell their stories.

More than 50 women have come forward to accuse Cosby of sexually assaulting them after plying them with drugs or alcohol, allegations Cosby has denied.